All Forum Posts by: Andrew Steffens

If I were you I would join an Atlanta STR Facebook group and ask for suggestions from them, and ask them for examples.

I now offer Florida wide limited service property management, everything I do for full service clients with the exception of housekeeping and maintenance management.  Happy to discuss details further if you are still in need!

I have 4 Phillipines based "Front Desk Agents". All of them speak great English (one actually grew up in CA) and all of them have been with me for 4+ years and work for me exclusively. All of them also had hospitality experience, some had STR experience. We have local support during business hours and then local support on call, but they are my front line for messages and the phones after hours and weekends.

In my opinion they work harder and are more conscientious then US workers I could hire for 2-3x the cost.  They are almost never late or call out.  When they do its for legit issues, I can tell they feel really bad about it, and try to make it up in any way they can.

Their culture is different and they are only as good as they are trained, so SOPs are very important.  On top of their front desk duties they do admin tasks for the other departments on down time.

I think adding some to your team can be very beneficial but just like any other hire you have to find the right one and train them properly or you will probably not achieve optimal results.

Something to consider, is the stigmatization of the area.  I am mainly in Tampa metro but I have some rental under management in Naples/Ft Myers.  That area performed rather well but has struggled since Ian in 2021.  The news showed the destruction over and over and many people moved their destination East to South FL or North to Tampa area.  It has never gone back to how it was before the storm.

In 2024 with Helene, Tampa area was hit hard by surge.  Luckily for my area the news showed some destruction but shifted its focus to NC where it was much worse.  Even today they are still showing the slow recovery.  The Tampa market is better this spring than last and my theory is the lack of news coverage, fast recovery and good PR by local chamber of commerce saved the day here.  I suspect NC will take years to return to where it was and may never reach pre hurricane tourism numbers.  

@Bryan Vukelich is my go to guy for HI - I know he is in Honolulu but perhaps he can help!

We only put limits of 66-68 in FL, people walk in, drop it to 50 degrees thinking it will cool the unit quicker and end up freezing the unit.  I have had to lecture some owners who set the AC limit to seemingly reasonable 72-74 but have gotten us complaints.

In addition to the sound suggestions above, Thumbtack has done well for me in the past.  Good luck!

I think with 3 properties you really do not need a PMS.  Unsure about Hospitable's product, but our strategy for direct is using StayFI to collect guest data, auto import into Constant Contact and then send monthly emails with promotions to previous guests.  We run about 6-12% direct bookings doing this.

We use Helix mattresses and get a lot of compliments.  They are not the cheapest BUT I do get about a 40% discount on them.  You end up with $1000 mattress for $600.  There are cheaper out there but its a high quality, comfortable, and durable.  I am happy to share my discount if anyone is interested because the more we purchase in a year the better our discount is.

Is there any camera coverage on that area?